RY 766, Ascending Fire, the Calling

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RYY 766, Ascending Fire, the Calling

Accounts of what posterity has come to call the Time of the Calling vary wildly, largely depending on origin. Blessed of the Dragon of Air and renowned historian Tepet Fukuyama, in his research, documents no less than a dozen distinct apparitions of the Solar known at the time as the Veil-Winged Shrike. In some locations, largely those nearer to the Blessed Isle (as well as Greyfalls, the former redoubt of the Scarlet Empire), the apparition spoke in courtly High Realm, while in others she appeared to speak in the familiar Rivertongue dialect. In every instance, descriptions of her attire and her posture differ; in some cases, witnesses report seeing her holding herself in a rigid posture of ritual benediction, her hands making what some educated interviewees identified as the Creation-Succouring Mudra first made by the Primordial Cytherea; in others, she appeared to be lying or lounging at ease, as if speaking to acquaintances.

The general attributes of each apparition, however, share a great deal in common. Each one opens with the sight, familiar to some, of a cherub similar to the variety summoned by the Infallible Messenger spell in wide use among sorcerers throughout Creation, a visitation usually granted to the most senior or prominent or influential individual in a community or settlement. The message, however, instead of being merely spoken, takes the form of a blazing silhouette of the Solar, every exquisite feature rendered in breathtaking detail by filaments of brilliant golden light. Some magical trick caused every single last person consulted on the matter to insist that the apparition looked directly at them, making immediate eye-contact with thousands of individuals simultaneously. The radiant image then speaks softly in a voice audible for fifty miles around.

Beloved, we have been gone for an Age, and you no longer remember us as we were. Beloved, cruel fate and mischance, and our own unthinking hubris, have stolen us away from your side where we belong, and for centuries you have toiled in hardship, in fear, in decadent decline, in an Age of Sorrow amongst the shards of the dreams we once brought to life. Beloved, others have risen and have denounced as despots, as monsters, as Anathema -- as authors of your sad fate, and you have hunted us, despised us, given us over to our enemies when we were weak and alone. They have made you promises of protection in our stead, of shelter, of righteous rulership, and on each of these counts they have failed, as we once failed: even in the heart of Creation you fear the wild Fey of the uncharted reaches beyond our world, you fear the ravening of ancient Primordial monsters, you fear the whispers of the Underworld. You live a fraction of the span of your ancestors, and your sovereigns abuse you for their own benefit unchecked. In the twilight of our Age of Dreams you have managed as best you can, and at every turn when we attempted to return you have driven us away with sharp steel and hurtful words and closed minds.

But, Beloved, that time is over. We have returned, contrite and enlightened. We know what you have done to us, and we forgive us, and we can only hope for your forgiveness in return. We are the Chosen of the Gods, the Hands of Heaven, anointed of the Unconquered Sun, and it was we who struck down the ancient authors of Creation and made the world a place for men instead of monsters. We who built the cities, in the ruins of which you dwell. We have come not because we wish it, nor because we have been sent, as once we were by Sol Invictus, but rather, because you need us, now more than ever.

A new danger has risen in your midst. For years you have not spoken of Thorns, nor of the dark figure that sits in its heart, gathering in his hands the threads of your destruction. You have hoped that, uncourted and unacknowledged, he would be content to remain the dark lord of a dead city, but yet he comes striding forth with his legions of the desecrated dead. By his hand Nexus now rots beneath a miasma so foul the Sun itself spurns it. By his hand, too, Lookshy would have fallen, the strong safeguard of the River Province against the imperialism of the Realm sacked and looted, but for us and our intervention. Before us, the lies of the enemies of Creation were brought to light, and by our calling the light of the Sun itself swept Lookshy clean of the undead.

There is no longer time for recriminations, nor for diplomacy. We call you as we once called your ancestors, in defence of hearth and home to arms yourselves and answer our call. We are the Solar Exalted, and we have come because Creation has called us forth to do battle in its defence. There can be no doubt that the Deathlords mean to have nothing less than a maggot-ridden wasteland to trample under their feet, and it is this end that we have given our blood to prevent. The enlightened rulers of Thorns could not save them. The wealth of Nexus could not save them. The might of Lookshy that defied an empire would not have saved them. Only we can, and we will, for we must, and because we have not forgotten you, Beloved, nor our dues to you.

Come! Soon we will raise the call to our banners for the battle that will determine if Creation lives on in all its wonder and its wickedness, or if it falls entirely in the Underworld, where you and the shades of your ancestors will know the infinite torments of the soulforge. Soon we will call you to give everything that you have, that our world may live on. Soon we will call you to march, to fight, to resist with all the life in your bodies the tyranny of unjust death and of a broken world.

Soon we will call you forth. Come.

While the nascent Solar Conclave experienced many more milestones in the process of its founding, most experts agree that its inception can be traced from this period, when the River Province was seized by a fervour on the scale of a ubiquitous religious ecstasy. To this day, every settlement in the Scavenger Lands to have been graced by an apparition of the Solar demagogue boasts a likeness of her in its central square, and many are still witness to festivities centred around that one event and the outpouring of courage, resolve, and optimism that resulted from it, without which the Conclave's further developments and successes would have been impossible.